It'll be easier the next time, I assured her, even though I knew that was a lie.

Pain didn't get easier. I just had to get stronger.

​                                              -p. 204

The process of unmasking is all about rethinking the beliefs and behaviors that seemed normal prior to discovering we were Autistic. It means reexamining the stereotypes about Autistics (and other disabled people) we've been exposed to via media, education, and formative experiences in our youth. It requires we question society's most deeply cherished values, and notice where there are gaps between what we've been told we should be, and how we'd actually like to live.
​                            - Unmasking Autism

"Tell me, veria, what is the price of justice in your land?"

I watch his fingers, thinking of Valka, of that day long ago and the sapphire brooch. "Justice in my land is very similar to the king's law here--it is to be had for the rich and held against the poor. True justice"--I glance up to meet his eyes--"that would be priceless, I expect."
​                                                -p. 352

No analysis of any form of oppression in a Western context is complete without an analysis of the role played by whiteness. To put this another way, every form of oppression that exists in the Western world--yes, including class--is an oppression of white supremacy and its zealous ambition to scale the peak of human civilization and evolution. The white women of history have been given a pass for their role in colonialism and the institutionalization of white supremacy. We say they were "of their time" and didn't know better, or assume they acted out of either fear or ignorance. The truth is that calling them women "of their time" can be a legitimate excuse only if there were no serious challenges to their racist worldview in their time. Of course there were such challenges.
                                                 - WT/BS

The wolf looked at me impassively. We stood in a quiet meadow, tall grasses waving among the flowers, bees buzzing in lazy air currents. The wood lay leafy and ordinary behind us, not even a hint of snow in sight. Ahead rose a lone hill, sharp and brown against the sky. It was midmorning, or a little past.

"Where are we?" I whispered, my voice hoarse and my lungs aching. The enormity of what I had done threatened to overwhelm me. All I could see was my father, hurtling away on Tinker's cart.

"The house under the mountain," returned the wolf. "My house."

And he stepped toward the hill.

They had waited long enough. Perhaps he had given too much credence to the magic. . . . . Though Adalbert had ruminated on the plan a hundred times, a small twinge of guilt pierced his thoughts.

Elsie bumped into him, the way she used to when they were dating. "Stop it," she said scolding. "You are too old. Your first allegiance is to the legacy of the queen. We cannot help Poland tonight. They are coming and we cannot stop them. God be merciful."

. . . The queen's legacy had never been moved such a great distance.
​                                          - chapter one

The flowers woke me first, quietly tiptoeing into my sleep and casting a sweet floral filter over everything. I felt myself smile, breathing in the soft bouquet.

Then came the smoke.

Black, burning, and unforgivably present, it wafted in with an acrid bite, curdling my dreams into nightmares. My eyes flashed open and instantly watered as I stared into the rafters.

Was that shouting?
​                                                      p.116

"I don't know much. She controls the frost, or the frost controls her, or they're the same thing. They say she made a deal with the dark powers, that love would never hurt her again. . . . The devil took her heart and turned it cold. Now she loves however she likes, and when she's tired of them, she wraps them in ice. She keeps them in her palace in the farthest north, they say, all pretty boys like frozen flowers."
​                                                       p. 96 

There were twelve of us: the Thaumas Dozen. Now we stood in a small line, my seven sisters and I, and I couldn't help but wonder if there was a ring of truth to the grim speculations. Had we somehow angered the gods? Had a darkness branded itself on our family, taking us out one by one? Or was it simply a series of terrible and unlucky coincidences?
                                                            p. 4

Khalil drops the brush in the door and cranks up his stereo, blasting an old rap song Daddy has played a million times. I frown. "Why you always listening to that stuff?"

"Man, get outta here! Tupac was the truth."

"Yeah, twenty years ago."
​
"Nah, even now. Like, check this." He points at me, which means he's about to go into one of his Khalil philosophical moments. "'Pac said Thug Life stood for 'The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.'"
                                                          p. 17

The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjustitng to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly. Although their poverty was traditional and stultifying, it was not unique. But their ugliness was unique. No one could have convinced them that they were not relentlessly and aggressively ugly. Except for the father, Cholly, whose ugliness (the result of despair, dissipation, and violence directed toward petty things and weak people) was behavior, the rest of the family--Mrs. Breedlove, Sammy Breedlove, and Pecola Breedlove--wore their ugliness, put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to them.
​                                                          p.38

Candy cried, "Sure they all want it. Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much. Jus' som'thin' that was his. Somethin' he could live on and there couldn't nobody throw him off of it. I never had none. I planted crops for damn near every'body in this state, but they wasn't my crops, and when I harvested 'em, it wasn't none of my harvest. But we gonna do it now, and don't make no mistake about that. George ain't got the money in town. That money's in the bank. Me an' Lennie an' George. We gonna have a room to ourself. We're gonna have a dog an' rabbits an' chickens. We're gonna have green corn an' maybe a cow or a goat." He stopped, overwhelmed with his picture.

"My beautiful princesses," Dad says when the music pauses and the food stops its endless parade through the hall. "I'm delighted to introduce the  esteemed royals of our neighboring kingdoms to my marvelous girls. Not only are they lovely and kind, we have also seen over the past five years  that they are brave. And strong. Stronger than the rest of us. So strong they are enduring the worst spell our kingdom has ever seen."
                                                  p.65

"We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe--some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it... But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal--there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court.... A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up."
         - Atticus Finch, to the jury, p.234

Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger.

I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other.
​
It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn't pay well at all.

It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.
 ....
​I see IT in the hallway. IT goes to Merryweather. IT is walking with Aubrey Cheerleader. IT is my nightmare and I can't wake up. IT sees me. IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up.
                                     Melinda, Speak 

I had not been outside in years. I wasn’t sure how many, exactly, because I didn’t keep track from the beginning. I didn’t realize I’d need to. But my dresses had been replaced many times, at least six or seven, and I could tell I’d become taller. The top of my head didn’t reach the bottom of my window when I came here. I could see the sky, the sky and nothing else, blue sky some days, gray sky most. Then, I could see out only if I stood on my toes. But finally, at seventeen, I could see out easily. The birds, which are often below me, the clouds above, and the tall, green forest with miles and miles of trees.
  - Towering, chapter 1, opening lines

I wasn't sure what I was drawing.

That's not true.

I knew exactly what I was drawing. The only thing I could. I was going to re-create the scene, what had happened to me, what was playing constantly on the news, on the page.

First the outline. A teenage boy. Hands up. No. Erase. Hands down. No. Hands behind his back. Outline of a figure behind him. Bigger than he is. Holding him around the neck. No. Not that. Fist in the air. No. Not that either. Hand pushing through the teenage boy's chest. A building behind him. A store. Person in the doorway. Cheering.
               - Rashad, All American Boys